


holding on to what we haven't got

by celeste9



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Character Study, Comfort Sex, F/M, First Time, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-21
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2020-07-10 02:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19898023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Half the universe was gone and Natasha didn't know how to move on from here, in this strange new world they had failed to save. Maybe she and Bruce had missed their moment, but they were here, lonely and needy, and maybe it was okay to want something for herself, just for a moment.





	holding on to what we haven't got

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Endgame in the time following Thor killing Thanos.

The compound was full and yet somehow managed to feel astonishingly empty. Thor was gone already, Natasha was fairly certain, taking the ride off Thanos’ garden planet and then vanishing without a word. Mostly everyone was alone, grieving in their own way.

It was difficult to accept that it was over. Natasha wasn’t sure she could make herself believe it actually was, stones or no stones. It felt too much like crushing defeat, and like giving up.

She wished Clint would fucking return her calls.

The sky was black, a smattering of stars. It might have been ten o’clock or two in the morning; Natasha honestly couldn’t say. Neither Rocket nor Nebula had cared to explain what sort of time zone changes one encountered when flying through space and no one had bothered to ask.

Her stomach grumbled and Natasha realized she hadn’t eaten since… she couldn’t remember when, honestly. She didn’t much want anything but the act of getting food felt like something normal and necessary and tangible that she could do, as ridiculous as that sounded.

She found Bruce already in the kitchen, making a pot of coffee. At least, that’s what Natasha assumed he was doing, judging by the dark liquid filtering out into the pot. Bruce himself at the moment was leaning onto the counter, gripping the edge, staring at the cabinets.

Natasha hopped up onto the counter beside him and he lurched.

“Goddamn, Nat,” he said, one hand clutching the front of his shirt. “You’re gonna make me turn green.”

“I was going to eat,” she said, which was only half an explanation. “Coffee’ll work.”

“Coffee isn’t food,” Bruce said, though he got another mug out of the cabinet anyway. When it was ready he poured two cups and handed Natasha hers, leaning his back next to her knees.

They drank in silence. Didn’t really seem to be anything to say.

No. That was a lie. There was a hell of a lot to be said; it was only that neither of them seemed to want to say it.

It had been easier to ignore with Thanos looming in the future, with the goal of reversing the snap needing their focus, something important to work towards. Now there was just them, and the shadows of the people they couldn’t save, and this damn full yet empty compound.

“What was the point?” Bruce eventually said.

Natasha didn’t need to ask what he meant. In the end, she supposed, it was easier to talk about Thanos than it was to talk about what had happened between them. “That he’s dead.”

“And that’s enough?”

“Not really. But it’s something.”

They were quiet again, and Natasha sipped her coffee. It was still almost too hot but she didn’t mind the burn.

Bruce shifted and she could tell he was uncomfortable. He was different now, different from the Bruce she remembered, and maybe someday she would be able to ask him about what he’d done all that time he had been away. Maybe someday he would ask her about what she had done. Not that she was overly anxious to rehash the drama surrounding the accords, to be honest, but she couldn’t say it hadn’t been important.

Natasha was different now, too, she knew.

“What do we do now?” Bruce asked. His gaze flickered to the side of Natasha’s face and then away.

“I don’t know,” she said, because she really didn’t. Without Thanos, without the stones, with this strange new world they had failed to save… Natasha had no idea where they went from here.

“I guess,” she said, “I guess we try to help.”

Even as she said the words she realized how pathetic they sounded. Help how?

Bruce chuckled, dry and without any mirth behind it. “Because that worked so well against Thanos?”

Natasha focused on the kitchen wall ahead of her, on the discomfort from where she had burned her tongue with the first, too quick sip of her coffee. “I don’t have anything else.”

“Natasha,” Bruce said, his voice turning soft. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know.”

He tilted faintly closer towards her legs and Natasha closed her eyes briefly, settling herself. Everything was so… shit. It seemed so silly now, thinking back to her tentative flirtation with Bruce those years ago, how awkward they had been, how attainable it had seemed. She had fooled herself.

Now the world had gone to hell and here they were again, lonely and needy and craving something that they probably couldn’t have.

Natasha lifted her hand, halfway into the motion of stroking her hand through Bruce’s hair before aborting it, Bruce’s eyes so wide as he watched her. Now her hand was just hovering there above his hair. She clenched it, and then she gave in.

Because what the hell? What the hell more was there to lose?

Bruce shivered when she touched him, when she curled her fingers into the strands of his hair, shorter now than she remembered. “Nat,” he murmured, and Natasha didn’t care anymore.

She needed this.

“Missed our moment, remember?” Bruce said, but he was turned towards her, angled into her body, pressing into her hand.

“Pretty sure I don’t care,” Natasha said, sliding her hand through his hair, cupping his face. She bent down and kissed him.

Bruce’s lips parted beneath hers, the bitter taste of coffee on his tongue. His stubble rasped against her skin and Natasha thought maybe she had forgotten what it felt to want something for herself; she _wanted_ this.

“You’re not gonna push me now, are you?” Bruce asked.

“Not this time,” Natasha said, warmth surging in her belly that was a little bit affection and a little bit aching want. “Green’s not the color I’m interested in seeing right now.”

“Good, ‘cause he’s kind of fussy about coming out when he’s wanted these days.”

Natasha kissed him again; he seemed a little less nervous when he got too distracted to think. She scooted forward on the counter and Bruce awkwardly caught her around her waist, holding her up.

“Okay, you remember that he’s the one with the superstrength, right? And I’m pretty sure you just said it wasn’t the green guy you wanted.”

“You want me to lift you instead?” Natasha let herself drop down onto her feet, arching an eyebrow.

Bruce’s expression morphed to contemplative, a faint blush across his cheekbones. “Is there a correct answer to that?”

“So I’m guessing that’s a yes,” Natasha said, tugging at his hair.

“Maybe. Probably. Do you want it to be?”

She wanted to tell him to not be so nervous but she hardly knew what they were doing; maybe it was better if they both stopped thinking so much. She let herself lean into the want inside of her, to embrace it, and hoped Bruce would follow.

“Yes,” she said, and kissed him again, feeling the soft sighing of his breath and the rising and falling pressure of his chest. “My room’s closest,” she said, low.

Bruce’s breath stuttered briefly but he whispered, “That’s good, that’s perfect,” against her lips.

They walked side-by-side through the halls, arms brushing, fingertips touching every now and then. Natasha thought she heard Steve in one of the gyms, and wondered if any of the equipment would survive.

They all had their ways of coping, she supposed.

Inside her bedroom, Natasha turned to Bruce, thinking of making some kind of crack, something to ease them into this, lighten the heaviness in the air, but Bruce pulled her in before she could open her mouth, his hand in her hair, the other on her hip, his mouth against hers. He kissed her with desperation and Natasha pushed him back until he stumbled, half falling onto the bed. He stumbled and crawled back, Natasha moving forward to kneel over his hips, and this was better, maybe, easier.

They touched with want and desperation and regret and need, and nothing mattered for a while but this.

-

Natasha didn’t know how long she slept for but it was long enough for the sun to rise, shining in through the curtains. She knew her body had needed it; she wasn’t sure when she had last slept for multiple hours in a row.

Bruce was slumbering on his chest beside her, the side of his face smushed into the pillow. Natasha couldn’t help the surge of warm fondness she felt, watching him, even if she had a sense this morning was unlikely to repeat itself.

She got up, pulling a t-shirt on over her head and grabbing a clean pair of underwear out of a drawer to shimmy up over her hips. Bruce muttered something in his sleep but otherwise didn’t stir. She walked to the window, drawing the curtain aside to look outside.

From here the world looked normal: the sun was still shining, partially obscured by clouds, and the grass was still green. From here you couldn’t tell that half the world was gone, half the universe was gone. From here you couldn’t tell the Avengers had lost.

It was an illusion. It would break as soon as Natasha stepped outside the door; it was breaking even now, as she thought about it. The quiet was oppressive, even for the relatively secluded compound. Nothing was normal.

Except, Natasha considered as she leaned against the window, the slight breeze fluttering in through the inch it was cracked open, this _was_ their normal now. The streets, the buildings, all of them half empty.

They couldn’t go back.

Natasha glanced to Bruce in her bed. None of them could go back.

It was lucky then, maybe, that Natasha was good at moving forward, no matter what was ahead of her and no matter what she was leaving behind. The Avengers had lost but that didn’t mean the world – the universe – didn’t still need them. There were billions of people still here, grieving and thrust into circumstances they were all struggling to accept and to understand. It would be chaos.

Wasn’t that what the Avengers were for?

Outside these walls the sun was shining and it would continue to shine. Maybe that was what mattered now, hanging onto what was left and making it as normal as it could be. Helping where she could, like she had done for so long, from a SHIELD agent to an Avenger. The Black Widow. That was something, and maybe it was the something she needed to keep going.

Hope had never been amongst her skillset, nor optimism. But purpose? Natasha could do a lot when she had purpose.

Natasha heard rustling and turned her head, watching Bruce roll over onto his back in the bed and blink at her. “Hey,” she said. “Morning, Bruce.”

“Morning,” he said, his voice sleep-fuzzy, his hair rumpled as he sat up, the sheet sliding down to leave his torso bare.

“Looks like someone had a fun night,” Natasha said, smiling a little, and then a little more when Bruce flushed all the way up his chest.

Bruce rubbed the back of his head. “Met a girl. Went better than expected.”

“She sneak out on you?”

“She’s bringing coffee.”

“Sounds like a keeper.”

Bruce looked away, under the guise of finding his clothes, and Natasha turned back to the window. She knew that Bruce was gone already, even if he was still in her room, and that was okay.

It was okay.

As Bruce sat on the edge of the bed and put his shoes on, Natasha said, “You know my number still works, right? I’d kind of hate it if you disappeared again.”

Bruce looked up at her, his warm, open face hovering somewhere between guilt and shame. “I can’t--”

She cut him off. “I don’t really need an explanation. I know what this is. I’m gonna stay here, because that’s what I need, but I don’t expect you to need the same thing.” She attempted to soften her expression as well as her tone. “We really did miss our moment.”

He leaned back onto his hands, where they rested on the mattress. “We really did.”

Natasha wanted to tell him that she wasn’t sorry they had done this, that she had needed this, too, as much as she needed to stay here and fight in the only way she knew how. She wanted him to tell her that he wasn’t sorry either.

But she didn’t say any of that, and hoped he knew it anyway. “Call me sometime? So I know you’re not dead. My friends have a bad habit of doing that.”

She tried to say it lightly but knew by the way Bruce winced that she must have failed. Or maybe it was just a poorly chosen turn of phrase all around. (Maybe it was both.)

Natasha wondered if it was good that she had people she couldn’t so easily hide from and lie to now, that she couldn’t pretend to Bruce that her insides weren’t twisted up in regret and loss over what had happened. Her trade had always been shadows and secrets and lies, after all.

But then, she hadn’t had anyone to care about back then.

There was an apology hovering on Bruce’s tongue; Natasha could practically see it. Maybe a year ago she would have even wanted it.

“Looks like your girl isn’t coming back with that coffee,” she said. “Maybe we can have it together instead. Before you go.”

“Yeah,” Bruce said, his shoulders relaxing. “I’d like that.”

Forward, Natasha thought. Always forward.

**_End_ **


End file.
